Authentically ethnic restaurants are great, so long as the menus are in English.

Authentically ethnic restaurants are great, so long as the menus are in English.

Diners who are more averse to uncertainty than the average Joe – or, to put it in academic terms, have a “need for cognitive closure” — don’t like restaurant menus to have the authentic names of their meals. Instead, they prefer the English-language version, according to a study by Stephanie Liu, an assistant professor of hospitality management and consumer sciences at the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University.

“They don’t like ambiguity or information that is difficult to process. That’s why authentic names are less appealing,” she said. “They still get the same foods — it’s just the labels.” But some of the respondents said they would become irritated if they couldn’t find a solution to a problem — any problem — immediately. That didn’t bode well for ethnic restaurants. Liu and her colleagues studied 171 American adults, measuring their need for cognitive closure in an online survey.

Researchers presented the participants with two types of menus: One with the items named in theauthentic language, and one with the English version, but both with descriptions in English. They were asked to rate their attitudes toward the menu and restaurant, and how they felt about the decision they made from the menu. Diners who had a greater “need for cognitive closure” were more likely to prefer the Anglicized versions.

Unfamiliar menu items — and, perhaps, being made to feel stupid while trying to figure out the meaning of foreign dishes — breeds contempt. Customers who are put off by a menu’s exotic entree names often end up disliking the entire restaurant, Liu said. “Your attitude toward the menu is related to your attitude toward the restaurant,” she said. “The menu is an advertisement.” It even affects diners’ menu preferences even at drive-thrus and fast food restaurants.

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It’s a delicate balance. Having some authentically-named items can give a restaurant a certain gravitas, too. Another study of foreign languages on menus from a student at the Auckland University of Technology
found having the authentic language on a menu increased the customers’ perception of the authenticity of the restaurant and its food — which could increase customers’ expectations of the meals they’ll receive.

It even went so far as to suggest that Chinese script influences non-Chinese diners’ perceptions of the restaurant’s brand personality and food authenticity. Restaurants tend to use untranslated menu item names to impress their clientele, even if they know that customers may not speak the language, according to a Duke University study
called “America’s National Dish: The Style of Restaurant Menus.”

But the preference for easy-to-understand menu names could be on the wane. Younger restaurant-goers are more likely to embrace foreign languages on their menus, said Darren Seifer, a food analyst at market information organization NPD Group. “In foreign cuisines, we see a greater willingness amongst millennials, and a lot of that stems from the fact that they grew up with the internet in their pockets,” he said.

Seifer says no one knows everything about food, so people should speak up and ask the wait staff how to pronounce a menu item. The name of the well-known Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle, for example, is still often pronounced wrong, he added. (It’s pronounced che-pote-lay). It’s only natural that people want to feel welcome and at ease when they’re spending money, he added. “They’re uncomfortable with a language they don’t understand.”

Alessandra Malito is a personal finance reporter based in New York. You can follow her on Twitter @malito_ali.

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